Can an Office of Equity succeed?

Portland Mayor Sam Adams' proposal to establish an Office of Equity in Portland City Hall has traveled a troubled road on its way to a public hearing and the introduction of a city ordinance scheduled for tonight.

In the past half-year or so, the overly vague idea has gained some form and substance, but we're still not sure whether it is as fully baked as it would need to be to successfully launch and do some good. Certainly the idea has a great deal of appeal.

Originally conceived as a high-minded effort to begin correcting some of the city's social ills, the idea of establishing the Office of Equity soon ran into a wave of contradictory opinions and goals. The sheer impossibility of trying to correct every societal ill in the city creates a huge danger that such an effort, without intense focus, could correct nothing.

Even so, there are ideas in this proposal suggesting that with effort, intelligence and rigorous accountability, an Office of Equity in Portland could do some good.

Lord knows there would be plenty of places to start. The State of Black Oregon report issued in 2009 by the Urban League of Portland, and a follow-up effort by the Coalition of Communities of Color, Portland State University and others, plowed plenty of ground, pointing to racial disparities in everything from primary education to electrical contracting. The duty of a new organization at City Hall would be to identify a few opening issues and focus on them intently.

An obvious observation here: Nearly every aspect of modern government -- if not modern life -- comes with rules about equity imbedded. There are rules for hiring, firing, promoting, demoting, sanitation, food service, lighting, the height of counters, the slopes of ramps and almost anything else you can think of. In a perfect world, they would all be followed and offices of equity, auditors, building inspectors and inspectors general would not be necessary. But as the disparity reports we just mentioned show plainly, that is not the world we live in. If we can manage to successfully take on such issues in the cause of fairness for everyone, why shouldn't we try?

Well, for one thing, local governments don't need excuses to start new initiatives. Money is tight. New initiatives don't grow well these days, and those that do need to succeed, clearly and quickly.

Portland could start by taking an even closer look at the cost of putting together this initiative. Adams and Commissioner Amanda Fritz, whom Adams would put in charge of the Office of Equity, have already agreed to combine it with the city's similarly tasked Human Relations Office, but the projected annual cost would be somewhere north of $1 million. It needs to be a lot south of that number.

Establishing an Office of Equity for Portland could be truly successful or a miserable waste of money. It can offer new insight and raise the status of many of Portland's communities of color, making up about a quarter of the city's population, and other disenfranchised people. Or it could do nothing useful for anyone. That depends to a major extent on the quality of the plans its employees and leaders devise and their carrying them out with discipline, commitment and transparency.

After tonight's hearing at 6, the Portland City Council will have to assess those plans and the likelihood of their proper execution. Then they will have to check back in short intervals, say six months.

Do we like this initiative's chances of success? Not especially. Do we want it to succeed? Absolutely.